A few years ago, players gathering on a hillside in your favorite massively multiplayer online role-playing game almost certainly meant a raid group was forming. If you climb that hillside in 2014, your would-be combatant might end up as a witness in a marriage ceremony.

A change in hillside etiquette may be jarring for some, but in-game marriage is just another natural outgrowth of the online gaming experience. The first MMO marriages were simple ceremonies that players created within the existing framework of their games. Two people found a nice place, invited some friends, and had someone say a few words. The practice grew, and some developers added marriage systems to their games. A few of these systems even offer perks that make marriage a necessary process for players.

This MMO marriage phenomenon gained momentum last month when Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn director Naoki Yoshida told Japanese website Famitsu that a marriage system is in the works for the Square Enix hit. This system will feature elaborate costumes, matching rings, and undisclosed perks for the bride and groom.

And during developer talk today at the giant Electronic Entertainment Expo tradeshow, Yoshida confirmed that same-sex marriage will be available in A Realm Reborn’s next patch. The announcement comes almost two years after Yoshida mentioned that same-sex marriage was under consideration during a Q&A on the Square Enix Forums.

The announcement got us thinking about the wedding practices in today’s MMOs, so we took a look at the different marriage options available in four of the world’s most popular online games.

World of Warcraft

Blizzard has added new features to its swords and sorcery-style MMORPG for almost a decade, but a marriage system isn’t one of them. Azeroth residents have responded by creating their own elaborate marriage ceremonies over the years.

This freedom has resulted in some pretty adorable ceremonies:

However, the freedom goes both ways. The lack of a formal system means that player ceremonies can turn ugly rather quickly:

Blizzards has no formal rules for ceremonies that its players put on, but the WoW wiki does offer a few suggestions in its wedding guide:

For a more traditional wedding, choose a large city temple like the Cathedral of Light or Temple of the Moon. The more low-key options include Uther’s Tomb, Scarlet Monastery’s Cathedral, and the Banquet Hall in Karazhan.

Tailors can create a wedding dress and a three-piece tuxedo. Almost any set of rings works for the ceremony.

Use caution when finding an officiate. This person (typically a priest or paladin) will do most of the talking and actual work during the wedding. They will instruct both parties on when to kneel, trade rings, and kiss.

The wedding party should also appoint a photographer to screenshot or record video.

Vendors sell fireworks, or you can go to engineers who can make them. These add a nice finishing touch.

Age of Wushu

Age of Wushu demands balance from its players. It’s about martial arts game at its core, but players must also spend time meditating, crafting, trading, and pursuing an artform like painting or calligraphy. A patient population accustomed to nonviolent endeavors seems like the perfect group for an elaborate marriage system experiment, and that’s just what developer Snail Games did last November.

The marriages in Age of Wushu follow many of the traditional values of Ming-era China setting. It does not permit same-sex marriages. Both male and female characters can register self-recommendations — which are basically 16th century eHarmony profiles — with the Matchmaker. As you might expect, this NPC will offer players a potential spouse based on profile compatibility.

Whether you use the Matchmaker or choose your own partner, you will need to follow strict proposal rules. Only the man can propose, and he must offer a Betrothal Gift of Taels (Wushu’s currency) to his potential wife. If the woman accepts, she keeps the money, and it is time to start the planning.

Players now have to purchase the same things real couples need for a wedding: invitations, a venue, travel arrangements, entertainment, etc. Wushu has variety of options for whatever your Tael budget may be.

After the ceremony, the bride and groom dance for their guests. The groom then carries the bride back to the bridal chamber and suggestively closes the door. And players go back to breaking faces and crafting.

Wushu offers no tangible bonuses to players who marry. The only things the wedding ceremony offers are exorbitant wedding costs and mushy feelings, which clearly makes this marriage system the most realistic of all.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

The gaming-romance pioneers at BioWare took a different approach to coupling in MMORPGs. Star Wars: The Old Republic players don’t marry one another; they get hitched with one of the nonplayable companions that accompany each player on their journey.

Every class in SWTOR has marriage possibilities that depend on the player’s gender. A male Jedi Knight can marry Kira Carsen, a female companion. A female Jedi Knight can marry Doc, a male companion. It has no same-sex relationships options, which is quite surprising given BioWare’s past work with the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series. A few players have taken to the message boards to ask for a patch that adds same-sex coupling, and the developer appears to be taking steps to rectify this.

In order to persuade a companion to marry you, you have to gain enough affection points to earn the their love, and you pull this off by completing dialogue and quest options that correspond to the companion’s ideology. Take Doc, a combat medic interested in helping those in need; a female Jedi Knight can gain his affections by healing the sick and donating to charity. Players can also give their companions gifts to gain instant affection bonuses.

Once you finally gain enough affection, a marriage option will pop up in a dialogue box. After a quick ceremony that your ship’s droid conducts, you are married.

Then, things go back to normal. Your spouse doesn’t call you honey or sugar lump while you are killing Republic soldiers. You don’t get any additional cutscenes or special interactions. Your spouse just sends you an impersonal e-mail every now and then. Adding interactions is difficult for BioWare. Every character in the Old Republic has their own voice, so each couple interaction would require additional work from an actor and an animator.

Still, it would be nice for all of that hard work that went into currying favor with a companion to mean something.

The Elder Scrolls Online

Bethesda included a very useful marriage feature in its colossal release. Unlike most other marriage systems, The Elder Scrolls Online system provides real benefits to the parties involved. However, it has a catch: Only players with the Imperial Edition (retails at $100) have access to the item necessary for marriage.

The Imperial Edition bundle contains a Pledge of Mara, which you use for the ceremony — and these may be same-sex marriages. In order to start, players must group and visit a Shrine to Mara in any of the starting towns. One of the players must equip the Pledge and look at the other player. Both players will receive a marriage prompt, and, if they both agree, the ceremony’s magic lifts them into the air and surrounds them with pretty lights. The marriage is now complete.

The married couple will now have matching Rings of Mara in their inventories. These offer a 10 percent experience boost as long as they are both online at the same time. A 10 percent experience boost from level one on is a huge reason to get married.

Another unique feature of the wedding system in ESO is that it permits polygamy. Players can marry again, provided they can get their hands on more Rings of Mara. The experience buffs from each marriage don’t stack, but it is a good way to guarantee a steady experience boost if you are unsure if your first spouse will be online as often as you are.

]]>0Warriors need love, too: The complex state of marriage in MMOs [update]What is love without a blender? Zola helps newlyweds get the gifts they wanthttp://venturebeat.com/2013/11/05/what-is-love-without-a-blender-zola-helps-newlyweds-get-the-gifts-they-want/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/05/what-is-love-without-a-blender-zola-helps-newlyweds-get-the-gifts-they-want/#commentsTue, 05 Nov 2013 18:54:18 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=855629Don't feel like a $135 tagine dish adequately expresses your joy for your betrothed friends? Zola's goal is to turn the wedding registry into a pleasant online retail experience.
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Zola has raised $3.25 million in its first round of funding to grow its wedding registry for the “modern couple.”

Zola’s marketplace features a range of curated gift options, including a mix of traditional wedding presents (like blenders, china, and fancy linen), along with more eclectic offerings like bicycles, art work, and hygrometers.

It also features “experiences,” like a farmers market subscription or interior design consultation. Couples may also use Zola to ask for contributions to a honeymoon or cash fund.

Let’s face it, weddings are weird. A couple spends the equivalent of a year’s income to throw a party where guests stuffed into suits and high-heeled pumps watch them swear to be together until they DIE, followed by a conga line and cake.

The bright side is you get presents, which is really the end-game here.

Zola launched in early October. It was founded by Gilt Groupe founder Kevin Ryan and Gilt alumni Shan-Lyn Ma and Nobu Nakagushi. The basic idea is to fill a registry with stuff a couple may actually want and use, rather than six toasters, four sets of crystal stemware, and ambiguous grilling gadgets.

Back in the day, wedding gifts were intended to help a couple start their new life together. A wedding really was the beginning of married life, where people had no collective belongings and needed help from their friends and family to set up a home.

That is no longer the case. The average age of marriage is going up, and many of these couples are already living together. Chances are they have the basics, and don’t need to rely on other people and exhaustive wedding registries to furnish their home, as did the brides and grooms are yore.

But when do Americans ever miss an opportunity for excessive, over-the-top consumerism?

However a study conducted by the University of Notre Dame found that gift registries actually make weddings less meaningful for guests. People may want to buy you a gift to celebrate this important event in your life, but may not feel that dropping $135 on a tagine dish adequately expresses their joy.

Zola’s goal is to turn the wedding registry into a pleasant online retail experience for everyone involved, and put a bit of sentiment back into the shopping process.

Couples can find a curated selection of things they may actually like, want, and use, or add in items they found elsewhere on the Internet. Zola offers Starter Collections, which include popular items based on specific preferences, as well as featured registries. Couples create unique URLs and can personalize their registries with photos, stores, and anecdotes.

Gifts can also be marked for group gifting, where friends can basically crowdfund more expensive items, and Zola notifies the couple when each item has been purchased. The system tracks and organizes all of the transactions so couples can make sure they get all the goodies. And write thank you notes.

Thrive Capital led this round of financing. The capital will be used to improve the platform, develop mobile apps, and add more local experiences to the inventory.

Zola competes with TheKnot, MyRegistry, NewlyWish, and RegistryLove, which all have their own approach to selling nuptial gifts online.

It is based in New York City, where the average wedding costs $65,824.

]]>0What is love without a blender? Zola helps newlyweds get the gifts they wantForget cake and love: Zola focuses on most important part of a wedding — giftshttp://venturebeat.com/2013/10/09/forget-cake-and-love-zola-focuses-on-most-important-part-of-a-wedding-gifts/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/10/09/forget-cake-and-love-zola-focuses-on-most-important-part-of-a-wedding-gifts/#commentsWed, 09 Oct 2013 19:20:26 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=830929Gilt Groupe's founder launches Zola, a 'modern' wedding registry to improve the process of listing and buying all the crap people think they need to get married.
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Love, marriage, and commitment are great, but let’s be honest — getting married is really about the gifts.

Zola is an e-commerce platform that features a mix of traditional wedding gifts (like blenders, cookware, and fancy linens) along with more eclectic offerings like bicycles, art work, and hygrometers. It also features “experiences,” like a farmers market subscription or interior design consultation. Couples may also use it for contributions for a honeymoon or cash fund.

The basic idea is to fill a registry with stuff a couple may actually want and use, rather than six blenders, four sets of crystal stemware, and ambiguous grilling gadgets.

“Today’s engaged couples are passionate about many things – food and wine, design, world travel, outdoor activities, and more,” said Ma, Zola’s CEO, in a statement. “Yet wedding registries often lack modern offerings to meet their unique needs.”

If this amount of time, effort, and money is going to be spent outfitting a couple for the nuptial life, the retail experience for the betrothed and their guests might as well be streamlined.

Other sites like TheKnot, MyRegistry, NewlyWIsh, and RegistryLove have tools for pulling items from around the Web into one consolidated registry.

Zola’s platform also puts a strong emphasis on clean design and ease-of-use. It offers Starter Collections, which include popular items based on specific preferences, as well as featured registries. Couples create unique URLs and can personalize their registries with photos, stores, and anecdotes.

Gifts can also be marked for group gifting, where friends can basically crowdfund more expensive items, and Zola notifies the couple when each item has been purchased. The system tracks and organizes all of the transactions so couples can make sure they get all the goodies. And write thank you notes.

Zola’s cofounders have extensive experienced in high-end e-commerce through their experience at Gilt Groupe. After getting invited to, buying gifts for, and attending a large number of weddings, they saw an opportunity to capitalize on the rampant consumerism surrounding them. Zola takes a curated approach to wedding registries and provides useful tools for keeping track of the loot.

Its inventory currently has about 1,000 products, and couples can add items from external websites into their collections by pasting a link to those products.

Of course the average age when people get married is going up, and many of these couples are already co-habitating. They’ve started their life together, pre-wedding, and don’t need to rely on friends and family to furnish their home.

But fundamentally weddings are parties, gift-giving is a tradition that people like., so it might as well not suck so much.

Zola is based in New York City, where the average wedding costs $65,824.

]]>1Forget cake and love: Zola focuses on most important part of a wedding — giftsWevorce wants to make divorce suck lesshttp://venturebeat.com/2013/03/26/wevorce-wants-to-make-divorce-suck-less/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/26/wevorce-wants-to-make-divorce-suck-less/#commentsTue, 26 Mar 2013 18:33:13 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=705753Wevorce combines family law expertise with software to make the divorce process cheaper, more friendly, and easier on everyone involved.
]]>MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF. — Divorce may not be a pleasant topic, but it is an important one. Wevorce seeks to turn divorces amicable, by making it cheaper, more friendly, and better for the kids.

Today at Y Combinator’s Demo Day, founder Michelle Crosby told the story of going through her parents painful divorce as a nine year old. The silver lining? That she grew up to smooth this process for families to come.

Crosby has a background in family law. Nearly half of all marriages in America end in divorce and studies have shown that divorce can be a traumatizing event for children and cause lasting psychological damage. Despite this, little has been done to improve the experience for everyone involved.

Rather than starting with competing lawyers, Wevorce puts one lawyer at the center of the parents to begin negotiating and planning. Each step of the process also involves a software component to help iron out the various agreements and settlements and track all of the paperwork. Wevorce claims its software helps attorneys complete paperwork in 60% of the time it normally takes and saves clients money on fees.

Wevorce also provides information on the psychological effects of divorce to create empathy on both sides and help people cope with the challenges. It integrates counseling and communication in a more holistic approach to what is traditionally a heavily legal-centric process.

The Internet is here to help with the good parts of relationships. There are dozens of web companies to help you find a partner, and just as many to help you plan your wedding and baby showers. When a relationship is no longer working, however, the Internet is a fair weather friend with little aid to offer. This is where Wevorce comes in. Divorce is unpleasant enough as it is, so why not make it easier?

]]>1Wevorce wants to make divorce suck lessWhy I told my wife to stop me before I started another company (and she ignored me)http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/19/juggling/
http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/19/juggling/#commentsWed, 19 Dec 2012 23:28:22 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=593482Guest:There’s never a perfect time to get married, have a baby, move in to a new home, and start a company.
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This is a guest post by entrepreneur Alex Laats

In the early 1990’s, I attended a startup conference, where the speaker emphasized that a large percentage of entrepreneurs end up getting divorced. Forgetting what the rest of the presentation was about, I left with the idea that starting a company had the potential to ruin my marriage.

At the time, I was working for MIT, with dreams of starting a business. By 1996, I was ready to pull the trigger and start a company — but the alarming divorce statistics had left their mark. My wife, Laura, and I had a baby with visions of expanding the family, and an old home with a mortgage requiring extensive repair.

There’s never a perfect time to get married, have a baby, move in to a new home, and start a company. However, the dream of launching a tech startup had overtaken me, and I discussed the idea frequently with my wife. Laura had the patience and tolerance to listen. Shortly before starting my company, she gave me a coffee mug that said, ‘Carpe Diem,’ which changed to ‘Seize the Day’ when hot coffee was poured into the mug. I knew she was on board.

Because of the warnings from the presentation, I knew we had to start the company with the clear knowledge that our marriage would be put at risk, and we needed to be realistic about what it would require from both of us. An incredibly lopsided deal was made: I would work long hours out of the house. Work would come first, and Laura would bear the brunt of the taking care of our home, baby and finances. On top of that, she would continue working because we needed the income. My household responsibilities were minimal and manageable. We called it “The Deal.”

My startup “NBX” was one year old when we learned Laura was pregnant with our second child. When our son was born, it was clear the original arrangement wouldn’t work. There were plenty of moments when we didn’t have answers. We developed a new deal, and we made it work. It was a year later that 3Com bought NBX for $90 million.

This immediately and meaningfully changed our lives — money and personal time were suddenly in the equation. Happiest when working to build an exciting new business with a great team of dynamic and creative people, I immersed myself in another startup. Over the last 10 years, I’ve been involved with four start-ups, three of which were successful.

There have been plenty of rocky times along the way. At one particularly bad moment, I recall telling Laura to shoot me if I got involved with another startup. Thankfully, she understood my frustration but ignored my request.

I recently met a new company with a great business model, super-creative team and profitable growth, and couldn’t turn down the opportunity. It was time for another Deal, but this time it was with Laura, my two teenage boys and middle-school daughter. We’ve worked together to set expectations, and with everyone’s help we’ve found a comfortable balance.

When making these deals, it’s necessary to remember others are making sacrifices for your benefit. It’s important not to forget the little things. As cliché as it sounds, I remember my Dad starting my Mom’s car to warm it up before she headed to work. I make the morning coffee every day for Laura. I’m a bit obsessive about it, I confess.

Even when I’m up and out the door before anyone else is awake, Laura can turn on the coffee and know I’m thinking of her, and I appreciate the fact that she holds it all together.

Alex Laats brings 20 years of experience as a high-tech entrepreneur, business operator and team builder to ZeroTurnaround. Most recently, Alex created three businesses (Boomerang, RAMP, and AVOKE) and acquired one (Digital Force Technologies) while serving as president of BBN Technologies’ Delta Division. BBN is legendary in the geek world for many things including the development of the early Internet nodes and the invention of e-mail. BBN was successfully acquired by Raytheon.

Prior to BBN, Alex co-founded two business, including NBX, which was one of the first successfulenterprise VoIP businesses. NBX was successfully acquired by 3Com.

Alex walks a fine line of geek and businessman; all the while still maintaining his title as four square (theschoolyard game) legend in the short-guy, over-40 category.

Postagram, the mobile app that takes your Instagram photos, prints them, and sends them to your friends as postcards, published a beautiful little love story today. Two long-distance lovers kept in touch with Postagrams … and then received a wonderful, creative gift at their eventual wedding.

I talked to Postagram’s CTO, Bryan Kennedy, about the story.

“Apparently it was a couple that was doing the long distance relationship thing,” Kennedy told me. “The boyfriend sent a Postagram every week. Then, at their wedding, the bride’s sister presented them with a gift made up of those Postagrams.”

Here’s the story, from the Postagram blog in the words of the former girlfriend, now wife, LaDonna Consolo:

Above: Postal love via Instagram and Postagram

Image Credit: Sincerely

When my husband and I first met and started dating we lived about an hour apart, so we could only spend time together during the weekends. The five weekdays would stretch long but Mike would always send me a Postagram with pictures from our weekend and sweet captions that totally melted my heart.

After eleven months of dating, we were married, and my sister used my Postagrams from Mike to create a set of wall hangings to decorate at our reception. These sweet hangings now adorn the wall over our bed, and are a constant reminder of our love story. Most people might think to put these in a typical photo album but these meant so much more to us and we love being able to look at them every day and reminisce.

Thanks for making an app that gives us such a unique way to commemorate special days and preserve our memories. We love you Postagram! :)

That’s a great story, and great example that connecting with people doesn’t just have to happen via social media or pixels on a screen.

Postagram is a service by Sincerely. The San Francisco company recently launched Sesame, a new gift-in-a-box product line, just a day before Facebook announced its own gift plans.

For centuries, men have found creative ways to propose marriage to that special someone. Here are seven examples of how some awesomely geeky grooms-to-be used video games to pop the big question.

Nothing says romance like boiling lava

Indie sandbox building game Minecraft allows players to create some pretty wild and imaginative things, so it was only a matter of time before someone used it to pop the big question. Last year, an unnamed BioWare employee proposed to his girlfriend by writing “Marry me?” in lava in the game world. He also built a gigantic engagement ring. According to the video, she said yes.

“I got better things to do than help some schmuck hit on his main squeeze!”

Leave it to Gearbox Software to come up with a totally irreverent and hilarious way to propose marriage. In this video, foul-mouthed Borderlands mascot Claptrap is coerced by an off-screen developer into asking superfan Tora if she’ll marry her boyfriend, Ben, but not before he hits on her himself. Ben tells Kotaku that playing Borderlands together “easily made that awkward starting out stage of any relationship go extremely smooth.”

Hacker puts his skills to good use

YouTube user TheRealPfhreak originally wanted to propose to his girlfriend at Mount Baker in Washington, the site of the couple’s first date. There was no discreet way of getting there, however, so he did what he thought was the next best thing and digitally recreated the mountain by hacking a copy of role-playing game Chrono Trigger. “I spent a long time debating whether or not this proposal was awesome or incredibly stupid,” he explains. “Her friends and my friends helped talk me into it, and it was a huge success!”

Now you’re proposing with portals

When Gary Hudston wanted to ask his girlfriend, Stephanie, to marry him, he enlisted the help of level designers from Portal 2 mapping community website ThinkingWithPortals.com — as well as Valve’s Eric Wolpaw and GlaDOS voice actress Ellen McClain — to build him a very special proposal, according to Time. “You can say no,” GlaDOS says. “I’m sure he’ll get over it … eventually.” Luckily for him, she said yes.

Love and marriage in Little Big Planet

Listen closely and you can hear an audible gasp when gamer “DimmuJed’s” girlfriend discovers his proposal in a custom-made level of Little Big Planet called “Love and Marriage.” “She was so shocked she kept playing and knew I was filming. Afterwards, we hugged, she cried, and I gave her an engagement ring,” he writes.

A Mobius Proposal

A Mobius Proposal is a co-op puzzle platformer created by Matt Gilgenbach for the sole purpose of proposing to his girlfriend. Players in the game are on opposite sides of a Mobius band and must work together in order to overcome obstacles. “I incorporated the proposal in the game by displaying a fake low battery message and hiding the ring inside the battery pack of the controller,” Matt writes. He then secretly turned on his webcam to record the above reaction.

There’s an app for that

Jen is a verifiable fiend for iOS puzzle games, according to Cult of Mac, so her boyfriend, Joe, asked Foozle creator William Thurston to create an in-app proposal. Thurston agreed and worked the message “Jen, I love you with all my heart and nothing would make me happier than to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?” into his physics-based puzzle game. Beneath the message, there was just one button: “YES.” Not only did Thurston agree to create the proposal for free, he even offered the game as a free download for a limited time.